NORRISTOWN — Creative MontCo, the relatively new civic initiative aimed at cultivating the cultural and economic future of the county, received an oversized check from PECO during Thursday morning’s Board of Commissioners regular meeting.

Thanks to $20,000 from the electricity giant, Creative MontCo can expand its reach into the community and build on its mission of attracting and retaining businesses in the county with a creative twist.

Karen A. Stout, president of Montgomery County Community College and chairwoman of Creative MontCo, said the county has a residency that “spends more money per capita on the arts than most communities across the country.”

“What we don’t have is a strategy to capitalize on all those assets, and that’s what Creative MontCo and our plan will do,” she said.

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Last September, the group unveiled a 10-year plan, which had some very early adopters in funding and investing, of which PECO was one of them.

“While public investment is important in the arts, we know that public investment is tight and funding from the public sector is not always available,” said Stout.

“We’ve decided we can’t wait for public sector investment, and that’s why today is so important. We’re hoping to leverage this to get more private funding.”

Montgomery County Foundation Inc. is the fiscal agent of the organization and will be receiving private donations on behalf of Creative MontCo.

“We hope that as we go forward, we’ll be able to leverage these dollars, because this is a unique project — it’s a grassroots project. It’s all funded from the community and foundations,” said Virginia Frantz, president and CEO of the Montgomery County Foundation Inc.

“It is unusual for a county to do this type of project. Generally, it’s a state doing this type of thing, so it’s very important to develop the cultural identity of Montgomery County.”